LLY finally gained publicity in 1979. Before long it enjoyed a large readership across the nation, especially among students, and soon was adapted into screenplay in 1981. The adapted film based on the screenplay was released in 1983 and again received positive remarks and even awards from abroad. The uneven publication history of the novel seems nullified after all the success. However, there exist two epistemological gaps that need to be addressed in this success story, if one is to fully understand why the novel and film became popular and how its popularity could unveil the tripartite relation between the text, reader/audience, and politics. First, the novel did not receive much attention from the official when published in 1979; it was …show more content…
It contends that the adaptation of the novel itself reveals the elusive link between culture and politics, and that the official interpretation of the cinematic text illustrates the deliberate action on the state’s side to invent political meanings in certain text. Long Live Youth, a product of the 1980s, in this case, is thus less a propaganda piece of art than one whose propaganda meaning is invented and employed according to the needs of the state, especially in terms of the state’s youth and cultural …show more content…
The adaption works for political propaganda through the effort of reinforcing the role of youth as “red and expert” in the post-Mao political system of China. The ten-year Cultural Revolution had left traumatic memories physically and spiritually to both the people and nation. The successor of Mao’s government, led by Deng Xiaoping, who consolidated his power after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in 1979. Deng’s principle of rule rejects the route of class struggle and the mass line of leftist extreme as previous decades adhered to; instead, he called to pragmatism by putting to the fore the issue of economic development to realize the Four Modernizations of the socialist modernizing construction. While principle of national policies turned to underpin the significance to open and liberate minds of the people and country and to embrace whatever would benefit the goal to build a socialist China on a correct path, it is important to note that Deng insisted about the Four Cardinal Principles to achieve the ideal of Four Modernizations; that is, the socialist path, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the CCP, and the Mao Zedong thought are never to be
The most basic premise of this chapter is that works that are categorized within the adaptation and/or appropriation genre are inherently political, simply by the nature of their production. In other words, it might be simpler to say that original works of literature, in the case of this discussion particularly those from the literary canon, are often products of the culture they are written within. The author cannot help but to exert their own ideological agenda upon the text, though it is a job left to the reader to locate and interpret the clues to the agenda that are left in between the lines. The development of an adaptation is an extension of that process. By reinterpreting a text, for the sake of making significant alteration to the
After Deng Xiaoping gained power in 1978, a new political atmosphere was promised for the Chinese people. A promise of a free land with a modern economic state was made by Deng in order to gain public support. During Deng’s reign, a series of economic reforms were made. These reforms had major impacts on both the economy and the society of China.
New Historicism will focus on how language produces political hegemony and discourse within the text’s political and historical context. Structuralism will extend these conclusions and will hold the system of language in 1984 “under erasure” to determine how effective it is as an instrument of political hegemony (Derrida 1994). Nineteen Eighty-Four can be interpreted as a dystopian novel. A ‘dystopian novel’ is classified as a genre of literature that explores social and political structures. The features of dystopian fiction present themselves in Orwell’s novel through the creation of a degenerated society that is entirely controlled by the Inner Party. The Inner Party is personified through the ubiquitous figure of Big Brother, whose face is omnipresent in propaganda posters and the telescreens, which monitor the civilians’ everyday actions. The society in 1984 is totalitarian, in that a centralized party state and its bureaucratic apparatus control every area of life from labour, to culture, to thought, to language, to sexuality and everyday functioning. Upon first reading the novel, the grave ramifications of totalitarianism and its threat to human
Philosophy questions many ideas or statements. For example, the Examined Life asks, does life have meaning? This idea was analyzed, experienced, questioned, discussed and concluded in many different ways. There was a common thread between the Philosophy film, the Apology, our class discussions and the video, Examined life. We often ask ourselves, are we obligated to other people?
China's transition from the leadership under the iron fist of Mao Zedong to the more liberal Deng Xiao Ping gave the People's Republic a gradual increase in economic freedom while maintaining political stability. During Mao's regime, the country focused on bolstering and serving the community, while subsequently encumbering individual growth and prosperity. Deng advocated a more capitalist economic ideology, which established China as an economic force in the global community while endowing its citizens with more liberties and luxuries than previously granted.
Chinese Revolution is about making the entire country into Communists and killing each and one the people who hates Mao Tse-Tung. Mao Tse-Tung is the leader of China at this time who believes in equality and everyone should have the same rights. The Red Guards is a military group in which includes a group of children that eliminates the Chinese population due to hatred for Mao. If any of these events happen to our generation, most youth are smart enough to know that Mao is a bad leader and killing innocent people by the case of bitterness for Mao is wrong. The Chinese youth got swept up in the Cultural Revolution by Mao because the youth were easy to persuade into doing something. To expand this idea further, the Chinese youth weren’t old enough, not on this specific age, to realize whether Mao’s actions were virtuous or inaccurate. On the other hand, they thought that working for Mao and joining the Red Guards will help their country out, but they never knew the truth behind Mao’s plans. The truth about the Cultural Revolution was to kill anybody that gets in the way of Mao’s plans and destroying all the old buildings so that it would be replaced with new buildings or reconstruct the old buildings to become brand new again. In addition, the Chinese youth had no idea that joining the Red Guards will give a highly chance of getting killed. In other words, the adults were smarter than the youth because joining the Red Guards means the opposite of helping the country out. Mao just made them think that joining will help their country, even though it was the other way around like someone apologizing to their neighbor in which manipulating their minds that they’re now cool, but they were still rude to them afterwards. To repeat this, t...
Within the German Democratic Republic, there was a secret police force known as the Stasi, which was responsible for state surveillance, attempting to permeate every facet of life. Agents within and informants tied to the Stasi were both feared and hated, as there was no true semblance of privacy for most citizens. Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the movie The Lives of Others follows one particular Stasi agent as he carries out his mission to spy on a well-known writer and his lover. As the film progresses, the audience is able to see the moral transformation of Stasi Captain Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler primarily through the director 's use of the script, colors and lighting, and music.
While in school, the young kids would rehearse the Young Pioneer anthem that went, in part, as follows, “We are Young Pioneers, successors to Communism. Our red scarves flutter on our chests” (Jiang, 3). Mao began his reign teaching those that were of the working class that they were not being treated fairly and that he would work with them to better incorporate Communism into the country. Those that had owned property or had been wealthy were looked at in a negative light, namely that of the bourgeoisie. In order for Moa to accomplish his goal of doing away with the bourgeoisie, he and his team would work to destroy the Four Olds, “Old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits” (Jiang, 277). By making this decision, Mao simply reversed the roles of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat so that those who were of the higher class would become the proletariat and those of the lower class would become the
Overview the history timeline, Mao Zedong made the cultural revolution because he wanted to remove all capitalism in the country to consolidate his party. In other words, he tried to firm his stage and power in the country, remove capitalism maybe just is an excuse of his hunger. Because a lot of evidences show that before he made this revolution, a lot of people was not side with him. Furthermore, his party do not had a lot of fund to support the party work well. Red Guard may could be considered as the way to obtain more money to build up the party (Knight). In the Western, Religion leaders also wanted people to be loyal. They were fear someone would overthrow them. To prevent it happen, Mao abuse the violent and punishment to firm communism. It caused by personal desire. Nevertheless, this way could control people in short time but not forever. Moreover, people’s beliefs also can determine the fate of a country. Because of that, Chinese leaders spent a lot of energy to unity people’s mind. First, they print out “Mao Zedong’s Quotation” and require everyone must read it and study it (Knight). It is the reason why no one tried to say no to Mao’s direction. Second, the party controlled all kind of publication, that make people can just obtain the information that the party want people to get (Princeton University). A good modern
The Great Cultural Revolution, the biggest power struggle in modern Chinese history, caused some profound impacts in Chinese society. Started by the Chinese Communist Chairman Mao and lasting for ten years (1966-1976) as a means of purging dissents within the party, the movement fundamentally overthrew long-established social order, ideology, and education. “Class struggle” was the term used most often during this movement, and it caused some serious consequences. The division of classes by pure social statuses or specific classifications, namely the Five Red Categories and the Five Categories, was founded and the long class struggle had thus begun. It has exerted profound and significant impacts on the Chinese society, now and then.
In China, the People’s Republic of China was the Chinese communist party headed by Chairman Mao Zedong. During his rule, Chairman Mao’s most famous event was his second “5 Year Plan” or better known as China’s Great Leap Forward in 1958. The Great Leap forward was similar to Russia’s 5 year plan as it had focused on focused on the countries heavy industry. The People’s Republic of China had put in price controlling regulations on the market, enforced a Chinese character simplification in order to increase the low literacy rates, and finally implement large-scale industrialization
Mao’s Cultural Revolution was an attempt to create a new culture for China. Through education reforms and readjustments, Mao hoped to create a new generation of Chinese people - a generation of mindless Communists. By eliminating intellectuals via the Down to the Countryside movement, Mao hoped to eliminate elements of traditional Chinese culture and create a new form Chinese culture. He knew that dumbing down the masses would give him more power so his regime would be more stable. This dramatic reform affected youth especially as they were targeted by Mao’s propaganda and influence. Drawing from his experiences as an Educated Youth who was sent down to the countryside Down to the Countryside movement, Ah Cheng wrote The King of Children to show the effects of the Cultural Revolution on education, and how they affected the meaning people found in education. In The King of Children, it is shown that the Cultural Revolution destroyed the traditional incentives for pursuing an education, and instead people found moral and ethical meaning in pursuing an education.
Steinhoff, William. George Orwell and the Origins of 1984. The University of Michigan Press, 1976. Print.
The film Pulp Fiction was an immediate box office success when it was released in 1994 and it was also well received by the critics, and celebrated for the way it appeared to capture exactly a certain pre-millennial angst and dislocation in Western capitalist societies. The term post-modernist, often used to refer to art and architecture, was applied to this film. The pulp fiction refers to popular novels which are bought in large numbers by less well educated people and enjoyed for their entertainment value. The implication is that the film concerns topics of interest to this low culture, but as this essay will show, in fact, the title is ironic and the film is a very intellectual presentation of issues at the heart of contemporary western culture and philosophy.
Eventually, in 1949, after a grueling civil war, the Communists took the leadership of China, starting the new era of “the People’s Republic of China”. Mao led the PRC with ambition, and made many sacrifices, both himself and as a nation. Although Mao’s ambition and sacrifices did lead to the better China that is known today, there are many that question the necessity of the harsh choices he made during his rule over the PRC. One can even question the morality of the decisions made by Mao, both direct and indirect for his nation. During the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” of China, countless Chinese bourgeoisie were persecuted with almost no logical reason. His powerful and stern leadership turned into an iron fist. Mao in the long run did improve China, but many of his actions were unnecessary and actually hindered the progress of his